With the overthrow of Askar Akayev as president of Kyrgyzstan, it seems that people power has now arrived in Central Asia. The region, which could be as rich as Saudi Arabia thanks to massive mineral resources, is the least reformed of the former Soviet Union. In all five republics, the old local Communist Party elite simply donned new, nationalist colors. The only difference between now and 15 years ago is the search for international investment, so that the Stalinist establishment can enrich itself.
For that reason alone, the dramatic developments in Kyrgyzstan are to be welcomed. This bastion of Soviet despotism is not impregnable.
That said, the irony is that Kyrgyzstan was, relative to the other four Central Asia republics, the least dictatorial of them. In neighboring Uzbekistan, the government’s human rights record is far worse while Turkmenistan is entirely given over to the personality cult of its dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. But that does not make Kyrgyzstan less intolerable. The elections four weeks ago were anything but free and fair, with opposition candidates barred and electoral fraud widespread; the OSCE dismissed them as falling “short” of international standards, the diplomatic nicety to damn them out of hand. Just beforehand, the US State Department had described human rights there as “poor”, another piece of damning politico-speak.
Nonetheless, the world should be wary of celebrating this as the first wave in a tide of people power sweeping through Central Asia.
For a start, it is likely to make the leaders of the other four republics less amenable to change rather than more so. They will see the Kyrgyz revolution as the result of playing with democracy. It was the government’s blatant attempts to engineer the election results that triggered public outrage and now revolution. Furthermore, until a few weeks ago, there was no opposition figure in Kyrgyzstan who could act as a focus of public disaffection. Better, they may well conclude, to clamp down on dissent rather than let matters get out of hand — although that may be more difficult for neighboring Tajikistan, where elections were also held on the same day as in Kyrgyzstan and where claims of electoral fraud have been just as loud.
There is a real danger of civil war in Kyrgyzstan. Moscow may have been caught off guard by the speed of events in Kyrgyzstan, but after the recent humiliation in Ukraine and the continuing instability in Chechnya, it is not going to let Central Asia slip out of its hands without a fight. President Akayev was a key ally; he may have fled but he has made it clear that he wants power back and President Putin wants him back as well; despite an apparent willingness to cooperate with the new leadership in Bishkek, he has condemned the Kyrgyz revolution as “illegal” (when was a revolution ever legal?) and has offered Akayev asylum. The crisis in Kyrgyzstan is not yet over.
